The present invention relates to an operating device and a movable machine controlling system provided with the operating device, which are used for operating household electric appliances and the like or for teaching movable machines such as industrial robots.
For example, operating devices disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2001-88069, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2002-91665 and the like are each provided with an operating section including a plurality of keys and buttons, for operating a control target, and a display section for displaying an operation result by the operating section, a message and the like. Such an operating device may be integrated to a main body, such as with an air cleaner, or may be a remote controller that is independent from the main body, such as with an air conditioner. In the field of processing such as machine tools and industrial robots, the above-described operating devices are also used. This type of operating devices are referred to as teach pendants, and in most cases they assume a portable configuration by which they can be carried by a worker.
In an operating device, names of effects and functions to be performed by the control target are printed on surfaces of the keys and buttons, or in the vicinities thereof. In the case of household electric appliances, direct printing is often performed on the keys and buttons, which are made of plastic. In the case of machine tools, a key sheet is adhered to cover the entire surfaces of the keys and buttons, and icons indicating the effects and functions are depicted on a surface of the key sheet corresponding to the keys and buttons. The ornamental portions of the key sheet are processed with embossing. Further, the names of the keys and buttons are printed on surfaces of the embossed sections or in blank areas in the vicinities thereof. The operating device receives an operation by the embossed section being depressed, by which a key or a button directly below the key sheet is depressed.
For example, a key or button for receiving a data storage operation has Japanese characters meaning “store” printed thereon, and a key or button for receiving a deletion operation has Japanese characters for “delete” printed thereon. In this case, if the operator is Japanese, no problem will rise in using the operating device. However, a non-Japanese cannot understand meanings of the names of the keys and buttons. Thus, in a case of shipping to foreign countries, the indicia for the names of the keys and buttons must be changed in accordance with the language to be used at the shipment destination. In the case of employing the key sheet, the key sheet on which the names of the keys and buttons are printed needs to be replaced in accordance with the language to be used.
Accordingly, a plurality of types of operating device main bodies or key sheets corresponding to respective languages need to be prepared in stock in order to correspond the contents of printing to the respective languages. Further, burden of packaging and adhering increases proportionate to the number of countries to ship to. Thus, management costs and numbers of manufacturing steps are increased.